The new domaine in our portfolio is Enderle & Moll in Baden. Our first venture outside the Mosel region, even though we’ve been scouting over the years the Nahe, Mittelrhein, Rheingau, and Pfalz. Yet, nothing unrepresented has thrilled us quite like this before.

A fellow Mosel wine junkie, Oliver Fischer, who lives down the street from my flat in Trier, had been telling me over the past year or so about a couple of crazy guys in Freiburg producing funky, genuine Pinot Noirs that I was sure to like. Oliver supplies them with natural corks and brought back a sample of their 2007 Pinot Noir for me to taste last December. His intuition was right. So, I followed this up by asking the amicable Florian Moll for more samples and knew after tasting several bottles at home that this was a discovery that Dan and I just couldn’t pass up on, even though we already have three very good producers of Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) in our portfolio.

Sven Enderle (long red hair and beard) and Florian Moll first met in 2003. After school and various apprenticeships, they decided to make their own wines starting in 2007. Each have another job to make ends meet, which is a struggle at times, but also gives a greater appreciation of their work and feats.

They hold a total of 1.8 hectares in Ortenau. Their south-facing vineyard site is Münchweier Kirchhalden on Buntsandstein (colored sandstone), a similar soil type to Fürst in Franken. Sven acquired their first parcel of just 0.30 hectares in Kirchhalden, above the village of Münchweier, in 2006 and this was the impetus in starting Enderle & Moll a year later. All work in the vineyard is done by hand with an intimate understanding of their 25- to 40-year-old Pinot Noir vines. Their yields are between 25-30 hl/ha. They work organic, moving toward biodynamic.

In addition to a rare and noteworthy plot of old vines growing on four terraces, they’ve added to their line-up for the 2009 vintage one of the oldest parcels (on a mere 0.45 hectares) in the region, some 60-year-old Pinot Noir vines in Muschelkalk (shell limestone).

Enderle and Moll are hands-off in the cellar and it shows in the wines—no attempts at concentrating the must or making the wines dark and glossy. The dozen different parcels, mainly in Kirchhalden, are vinified separately, one-third whole bunches. At the beginning the fermentation is kept somewhat cooler. Grapes go in an old wooden-basket press. (Here Sven is pictured pressing their white grapes.) Upbringing is for 12 months in secondhand 228-liter pièces from Domaine Dujac and Jayer-Gilles. Eight weeks before bottling the individual casks are brought together and bottled by hand, circa 1,100 bottles. No fining, no filtration, and no pumping.

Because they don’t care for the quality criteria for Pinot Noir in Germany, especially in Baden, they’ve decided to declassify their Pinot as a Tafelwein (table wine), which doesn’t allow them legally to write the single-vineyard name on the label as seen here. That’s why we asked them to put the name “Buntsandstein” instead. They want to get away from the fixation on must weights and the Prädikat system, based on Oechsle. Florian Moll said that it’s silly to equate higher Oechsle levels necessarily with better quality. In addition, he feels this often leads to overripe, high-alcohol wines with lots of extract and no acidity and delicacy. Moreover, Enderle & Moll would most certainly have difficulties getting approved for an A.P. number, because their wine would be deemed atypical.

Florian, who drove up to Trier in April for a visit, describes their Pinot as having a distinct minty character, once you get past some of the sponti (wild-yeast) aromas. The wine has a good acid structure, fine tannins, complexity, and depth of flavor, reminiscent of top red Burgundy. Decanting is recommended, three to four hours before serving.